It occurred to me just now as I was clocking out of work that the Bible could be understood as a time clock.

Take David, or Joshua, or Esther, or any of the Bible characters we follow fondly through the holy text; they were living their lives, they were going about things as they had always done. I'm not even sure that they were even remotely aware that the Bible spotlight was momentarily focusing down on them.

Let's call that moment the "Bible Time". Punching in on the clock.

Without any fanfare or adue you'd swipe in on the regular daily clock as you had always done, you'd go about your business, and when your business was done you'd swipe back out. Like a thousand times before and since...Just another day...Just another lunch break. Or was it?

For the few more influential time punchers, this 'ink' time was a brief time here (maybe an hour or a day, maybe a conversation, or a person you met, the time in-between this due date and that), another time you're noted (maybe an awkward reaction of yours, an event you attended, a detail you mistakenly left out), then maybe if you were really really influencial a final mention ending in "the days of his life numbered". Total "Bible Time" in commisionable hours? Three minutes or three days depending!

The rest of the time you were living as you already were living, your house and your wife and your rowdy neighbor in the apartment below. You spent your time tending your sheep or weeding your field, or being chased into exile by your crazy father-in-law.

For most characters the actual "Bible Time" rounds up to about fifteen seconds, just long enough for Jesus to acknowledge your question and begin a parable for you. The time recorded didn't include the sleepless nights that you spent mulling over His words, didn't include the descisions of faith you came to as a result, didn't include the push back from the people near and dear to you from then on once your descision was made. This was all done on your time. "Spirit Time"!

"Bible Time" was only the time in the spotlight; a punch or two or three in and perhaps that many punches back out; the work as far as your part in the scriptures done; the "rest of life" chores still to be done.

Think about all of the undocumented hours Paul still invested, healing from stone inflicted bruises, the down time hours walking between towns from one location to the next, afternoons ahead of an evening sermon at a stream soaking the blisters on his feet, time not on "Bible Time" yet time still on the job.

Not everybody has been afforded "Bible Time" (nor do most of us really want it). So much is expected of an audience when you are in that spotlight.

No, the more difficault time is the common time, the time when all the intellectuals and academics aren't watching, when there isn't a definite role to play, when the utility you serve is what you make it.

These are the times that we will most likely be judged by in the end however friend. These are the times though not really 'Bible Time' they are 'Spirit Time'. These are the 'knowing this about that from the Bible' 'what more were you able to do?' times.

We must be aware. We must be ready. We must invest ourselves properly into every waking minute (not always knowing whose or which clock we are on).